The avian influenza virus may be present in milk from dairy cows
Written by Kristian Sjøgren
The avian influenza virus is capable of infecting cattle, making them a potential source of infection for humans. A researcher says that understanding these connections is important because dairy cows can transmit infection to other animals and humans.
At the end of March, virologists all over the world became alerted after an outbreak of the highly pathogenic avian influenza virus (H5N1) was first detected in cows in the United States and has since spread to more than 90 herds in 12 states.
Three people who work with cows were infected with the virus during this period, and H5N1 is at the top of the list of viruses feared to cause a new pandemic.
Further, scientists found that the milk of the dairy cows with which the people worked was full of H5N1 viruses.
This was both shocking and surprising because it has long been generally acknowledged that the avian influenza virus cannot infect cattle. However, a new study shows how this can happen anyway.
“Since 2020, we have developed a tool to identify and characterise virus-relevant receptors on the surface of cells, and this method enabled us to discover that the receptors H5N1 needs to penetrate cells are also expressed in bovine mammary glands,” explains a researcher behind the study, Lars Erik Larsen, Professor, Department of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
The research, which is under revision for peer-reviewed publication, has been published as a preprint in bioRxiv. The researchers chose this publication method because they wanted to communicate their results rapidly.
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